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Acting against carding might outdo compromise: James

There must be ways to crush carding — to facilitate its reform or enable its collapse under its immoral weight.

Better to employ these tactics now, not after frustration erupts into Baltimore and Ferguson-like violence.

Chief Bill Blair listens to the proceedings last month at his last Toronto Police Services Board meeting, which discussed the controversial topic of carding. (Richard Lautens / Toronto Star)

For several years, members of the black community — together with human rights and civil liberties advocates — have engaged with the police to tame the most damaging aspects of the police practice.

Out of a sense of goodwill, and public safety, these black community moderates took this approach: There may be some value to the practice of recording information obtained in casual contact with citizens. To “ban” the practice only sends it underground; the cops will still do it, only, with no guidelines and no paper trail from which to monitor the practice for bias and improve it through training.

That was a difficult and enlightened position to take. After all, police data analysed by the Star showed black and brown citizens are four times more likely to be carded than whites. This is the case in a drug-infested precinct; it’s more so in a “crime-free” neighbourhood. In fact, a young black man is more likely to be carded going about his business outside his resident community.

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At the risk of ridicule from more strident citizens and groups who want the practice banned outright, these individuals collaborated with the police with patience and integrity and amazing skill.

Some suggested the black community should be marching on police headquarters, city hall and Queen’s Park demanding an end to this discriminatory practice. Instead, community members collaborated with police in the PACER review.

The police board held public meetings and, finally, voted reforms in 2014: If you are going to go on a fishing expedition, stop people just to pad the police database with info — not as part of an investigation or arrest — then tell the target that the encounter is voluntary and they are not being detained. And give them a “Thank You” receipt that documents the stop.

The Toronto police service created the receipts and started using them — until some internal uprising stalled progress. Police Chief Bill Blair refused to create operation directives to the rank and file defining the “public safety reasons” for carding. Internally, the pushback from police is distilled to “We don’t have to tell citizens why we’re stopping them.”

Even, it seems, if it is for no reason other than to satisfy some administrative mandate and unwritten quota.

In essence, the Police Services Board capitulated and agreed. With Mayor John Tory (open John Tory's policard)’s enabling, the 2014 reforms were reversed, a new chief was installed with praise for carding on his lips, and a narrative questioning the Star’s data and the reported experiences of black citizens.

Reasonable people, then, are forced to push back — if only out of self-respect.

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One. Young black men, the obvious targets of police, should file Freedom of Information requests to see their carding file. File the requests by the thousand. That should tell them what information police have on them. Much of the info is sloppily gathered, hurriedly reported as part of expected performance quotas, and out-and-out incorrect. Swamp the cops with requests. Then, expose the info online.

Two. Issue “Don’t Stop. Don’t Talk” cards. Similar ones already exist, such as the No ID card issued by the Centre for Police Accountability. Expand their use.

Three. Encourage card holders to video record every exchange when they show police the cards.

Four. Pursue all legal means to challenge the constitutionality of the practice. The ruling by a judge this week addresses a citizen’s right to walk down the street and not answer police request for information, while not under arrest or investigation. As the judge said, it does not address whether the practice is constitutional. That question — a long-term project — needs to be answered.

Five. The Ontario Human Rights Commission is so displeased with the action taken by John Tory-led police board that it has withdrawn from further discussion on the matter with the police. Good. But not enough.

The Commission should pursue sanctions against the board and the service. If Tory’s position is so “inherently flawed” and a “retreat from earlier more progressive positions” designed to prevent racial profiling, the human rights commission should commence an investigation.

Six. Where is Toronto city council on this? Where is the council-approved resolution denouncing the current practice, slamming the reversal of reforms and demanding the board ensure all citizens are treated equitably?

Seven. Snub the Perpetrators. Groups such as the Harry Jerome Awards, Planet Africa, African Canadian Achievement Awards, the Jamaican Canadian Association and others should suspend their relationships with Toronto police, the mayor’s office and the police services board until these reasonable concerns are addressed. Do not invite them to your churches, your events or to the places you gather.

Continued agitation from groups like the Anti-Black Racism Network will help. They demanded this week that police provide evidence carding stops crime. Even then, it’s racial profiling and should be stopped, they said.

These are starting points. They flow from actions by the police brass and the police board that show a reluctance to play fair and avoid the stereotypes that a few black gunmen represent thousands of law abiding black men; that black people are a risk demanding special attention and suspicion.

Police arrogance has eroded trust. Regaining it will be long in coming.

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